Generally, a typical electrical connector includes some form of insulating or dielectric housing which mounts a plurality of conductive terminals. For instance, the housing may be molded of plastic material, and the terminals may be stamped and formed of sheet metal material. The connector housing typically has a front mating end and a rear termination end. Each terminal includes a front contact end and a rear terminating end. The front mating end is constructed for mating with a complementary connecting device such as a mating connector. The termination end of the housing is where the terminals are terminated to appropriate conductors which can range from discrete electrical wires to the circuit traces on a printed circuit board. For instance, the rear terminating ends of the terminals may be crimped to the inner conductors of insulated electrical wires.
During assembly of an electrical connector as described above, the conductive terminals often are inserted into a plurality of terminal-receiving passages through the rear termination end of the connector housing. Problems continue to be encountered during this process because of the tendency of the terminals to rotate out of their intended orientations during their insertion into the housing. This problem is magnified when the connector assembly includes such components as rear seals, rear end caps to hold the seals in assembly or other additional connector components at the rear of the connector housing. These additional components, in essence, lengthen the terminal-receiving passages into which the terminals are inserted and, thereby, increase the probability that the terminals will rotate out of their intended orientations during the terminal insertion process. This invention is directed to solving these various problems.